13 Mistakes I Made in 13 Years in Business

Today I’m happy to say that Xpand has been running for 13 years.

I’ve always felt that learning from your mistakes is paramount to success, and boy have I made a lot of them!

Fortunately, I did more things right than I did wrong, but the mistakes laid the foundation for some great lessons that helped me grow as a person and as a company. 

Here are 13 mistakes I made in 13 years of business and lessons I learnt from them.

1) I tried to do it all myself

Cashflow is usually a huge restriction in the early days of any business. This means you have to do as many things as possible yourself to save money, right? No. I know it’s hard to justify spending money when you haven’t got a lot coming in. I know, I’ve been there.

But I as soon as I took the leap to start outsourcing things like bookkeeping and coding (yes I tried to learn how to code for some silly reason), I was able to focus on what I do best. This is when my business started to grow.

2) I thought it was my responsibility to make the business work and no-one was going to help me

I was too headstrong and proud in the early days and didn’t ask for help when I needed it. 

One of my drivers is knowing how my family came to the UK in the 1960s as immigrants with absolutely nothing, and built several successful businesses through honest, hard work through a lot of adverse circumstances. 

I used to think that going through that hardship is the most rewarding way of succeeding, except I’m lucky enough to not have to have suffered their challenges as times are very different now.  

I made it harder for myself in the early days than it needed to be. When I reached out for help, there were good people that supported me.

Some of the help I received from people really re-enforced my faith in humanity. If I’d have reached out earlier, I would have been much further now.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you’re struggling.

3) I thought my business offering would be stronger if I kept all the skills in house

I used to insist that we keep all our skill set in house. I thought this would make us really attractive to prospects, which in some cases, was true. But I learnt that the cost of having skilled, experienced experts in house for every facet of our business (there are quite a few) wasn’t as achievable as I thought.

I really got into collaborating with other businesses in 2015 and things started to move very quickly for us as a business and for me as an individual. I feel as though my personal development stepped up a notch through the great people I surrounded myself with. 

4) Not giving regular attention to updating systems 

The wrong systems can cause you to hemorrhage money without you realising. 

Your systems need regular attention. Technology and people user habits change regularly. If you’re not keeping up, you’ll bleed money and not even realise it.

I last updated all our systems 2 years ago. It feels like just yesterday. I’m now in the process of reviewing everything to tighten up our efficiencies to see how we can provide an even better service.

I used to get frustrated that I have to keep updating our systems every 2 years. I’ve recently learnt that this is a common business challenge because the world around us is always changing. It made me feel a bit better about my situation after learning this. I stopped giving myself such a hard time.

5) I let the stress of business take over my life

In the first few years, I just felt like I kept getting it wrong. No matter what I did, I felt as though I wasn’t going very far and I gave myself a hard time for it.

Looking back, I can now say that this was all part of me finding my feet in my market place. I’d never run a business before and underestimated what was involved. I think this is a common challenge for all new businesses.

If you’re starting out in business and things aren’t going right, seek help; don’t take all the pain yourself.

You’re more resilient than you think. When times are tough, just keep going and you’ll come out on top.

I’ve had a lot of low moments over the years – times when I’ve been on the verge of giving up, but I didn’t. 

I’ve learnt that business owners are very resilient human beings. It takes tough times to bring that out in you.  

6) I didn’t always make the right management decisions

Everyone I’ve hired over the years has given something to the business that it sill benefits from to this day. Thank you to all employees past and present that have made Xpand what it is today.

My mistake was sometimes in not recognising the potential some people had and what they could offer to the business.

It’s so easy to see this when I look back because I have much more experience now. I just didn’t see it then though.

I suppose there’s not a lot I can do to change the past, but over the past few years I’ve made sure my team all have a say in how we do things at Xpand. 

This helps create a great, cohesive and collaborative work culture.

7) I set my personal goals too low 

I feel very lucky to have grown up around a loving and successful family. I don’t have a craving desire for riches and all things shiny because of this.

When I set up Xpand, I set a goal of buying a small house, driving a specific kind of (not too expensive) car and going on a couple of holidays a year. I achieved this very quickly and became stagnant. 

I realised I was capable of so much more so had to reset my goals to ensure I grew as a person. 

In my opinion, success isn’t about material things – houses, cars, clothes etc – it’s about the mind and life experience. You should always aspire to continue growing. I made the mistake of stopping growing because I set my goals too low.

I now regularly review what I want from life and adjust accordingly. 

Happiness is always the top priority of any goal I now set. 

8) I didn’t measure regularly enough

I’m a marketeer so measuring is key to everything I do. Ironically, I have always done this for clients but never had great discipline in doing it for myself.

My business coach helped me change that. I know exactly what I need to measure because I do it for clients all the time, but I lacked the discipline to do it regularly for myself.

I now go through all our key performance indicators with my team every Monday morning, without fail.

9) I didn’t have a mentor/ coach 

Up until 2012 I didn’t have a business coach/ mentor.

Prior to that I was…well, I’m not entirely sure what I was doing – probably running around like a headless chicken.

You can’t grow without the right type of guidance and a mentor/ coach is the perfect way to be challenged into growth.

You may not find the perfect fit in a coach straight away, so take your time to ‘shop around’ if you’re looking for one.

I’ve worked with a number of coaches over the years. I’ve been working with my current coach for the last 5 years. 

I like working with him because he challenges me. It’s uncomfortable sometimes, but the magic only ever happens when you’re out of your comfort zone.

10) I didn’t always listen to my gut feeling

If I’m honest, I’m still not always great with this.

There are two approaches to making a decision; logical and emotional. Sometimes I go against what my gut feeling tells me and things don’t go to plan.

I’m not saying you should always go with your gut feeling, I just feel as though I need to take the time to listen to it more and take it into consideration when making a decision.

I feel there have been a lot of occasions when my gut feeling has been right and I’ve gone against it (don’t ask me why). 

11) I tried to set up a second business when the circumstances weren’t right 

In 2009, I set up a second business that retailed in custom-made car accessories. I set it up with a business partner. 

I knew exactly what needed to be done to make it a success but there were a lot of things that weren’t in place to make it work the way it should have.

It was a new business so required a lot of time to be put in. As a result of this, Xpand started to suffer.

In 2011 I left the business as Xpand was my first priority and it wasn’t growing the way I wanted it to.

I clearly remember the day after I made the decision to leave. It was like a hazy mist had been removed out of my life.

I re-focussed myself and made the decision to really push Xpand. Within 12 months, Xpand went from being just myself to being a team of 4.

12) I used to buy on cost rather than value 

Good cash management is key to the success of any business. I mistook this for meaning I needed to get the cheapest deal all the time. Wrong.

Cheaper isn’t better. I now know (from a lot of ‘cheap’ purchases that ended up being expensive in the long run) that I should always buy services/ products from suppliers on the value they add.

13) I didn’t give enough time to myself  

Up until 2016 I thought putting in 50 to 60 hours a week was the way a business owner should work. How wrong I was.

My family taught me ‘the traditional Indian work ethic’. I’m very grateful for this as it laid the foundation for what Xpand is today.

However, I didn’t take enough time out for myself. I didn’t realize that by not resting, my productivity was dropping and this was impacting my whole team and therefore my whole business.

It took some pretty extreme circumstances of mental strain for me to realize I needed to slow down. 

I’m happy to say I now have a good work life balance. Overworking does creep up on me every now and then, but I now know how to handle it and what I need to do to avoid burn out.

There were more rights than wrongs

So there they are folks, 13 mistakes I’ve learnt from in 13 years.

Anyone reading this could easily think – ‘Did this guy do anything right??’. I’m glad to say there were more rights than wrongs. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, I feel mistakes are one of the best teaching methods (for me, at least).

Having said that, it’s always good to do your best to avoid them if someone can guide you. 

I’m always happy to chat to anyone needing help in business. Hopefully some of my experiences can help you avoid making costly mistakes.